A series of takedowns by law enforcement around the world may be taking its toll on the hacking group LulzSec. DailyTech claims that a number of recent police raids have seen the heart of the organization torn out. The first major arrest was LulzSec's chief ‘Topiary’ in the Shetland Islands, who is currently in jail awaiting trial. Recently five UK residents were detained, including supposed LulzSec leader ‘Kayla’.

According to reports two LulzSec members – ‘Sabu’ and one unnamed other believed to be called ‘Avunit’ – remain free. Other members including ‘Tflow’, ‘Recursion’ and ‘Pwnsauce’ have had run ins with law enforcement.

The group’s Twitter account has been silent for the last two months, which is a good indication that members are either already in trouble or laying low until things cool down.

While this probably isn't the end of the group, chances are their entire operation remains non-functional at the moment. Whether it remains that way we do not know.

Comments

It was no big secret that LulzSec quit while they were ahead because they were the sort of retards that decided to start pissing off major government agencies after an enormous security breach at Sony that led to a federal investigation.

In short, they dun goofed. They didn't think they'd piss off so many important people so when they noticed the results of randomly shutting down servers and hacking into places they shouldn't they suddenly start putting out the message that they only planned to terrorize the internet for a short while. "No, seriously! We only planned on being hackers for a little while! We did good! Bye everyone!"

You're half-right. They did goof up and screw with the wrong people, but they certainly weren't ahead. A little digging turns up a whole bunch of reports of how they were being worked over by REAL hackers. They finally realized they were in over their heads and thought they could duck out before they got into trouble.

There are some who would tell you they're merely innocent victims of circumstance and they did nothing wrong, but meh. Either way, they'll get what's coming to them, one way or another.

Funny, with all the news of arrested LulzSec members, the count of members claimed by the group is dwarfed by the number of arrest... Me thinks this smells funny.

And since most people have simply no idea what is an Informatics crime, what are the rights in this regards, jurisprudence, etc., you're going to have piss poor juries and uneducated lawyers when not simply badly educated judges determining the lives of what has a high chance of including innocents.

Of course! Because the whole world is out to get hackers! Arrest anyone who's ever been on a keyboard because we all know they can't afford their own lawyers! How could I have not seen this before! Truly, the dawn of the abacus is upon us once again! The end is nigh! Repent! Repent!

To be fair, a 'jury of your peers' is supposed to be one of our basic rights in the US, but historically hacking trials have suffered from judges, juries, and prosecutors that lack the basic background knowledge to understand what it is they are actually discussing except by analogy... and traditionally hackers have not been able to afford the defense team that would be nesseary to overcome this.

Throw into the mix hackers typical poor social skills... (social skills are critical during a trial, juries are notorious for deciding based off gut feelings rather then facts, and neurotypeical/personable people from unmarginzlied, unstigmatized groups tend to do much better in the courtroom.

More to the point, blaming people as being "hackers" seem to be the new scapegoat. A lot of lesser political adversaries have been caught recently in, was it Turkey? At least, a country near there where there's turmoil. They said they'd caught 20/30 something members while the whole thing was still fresh. As in the UK, they said they had captured one member, then later said they had captured him again (the previous time, it was just a "hacker"). It seems an easy way to make people fall. But don't bother arguing with Griff. If a witch hunt is started on this subject, he'll be at the forefront of the mob, quite happy to say anyone caught deserves it, no matter what they did.

Finally, last thoughts. Why is being a member of LulzSec in itself being guilty? If some members of criminal biker gangs can themselves be innocent of any crime, as well as mafia and so on, why is a membership to LulzSec a sign of guilt in and of itself? I freaking despise neo-nazi and neo-nazi mentality, but we don't arrest people simply because they have it. They have to at least plan a crime (or commit one) to get arrested. So why assume all the members are guilty of all the charges?

Well technically they are innocent until proven guilty so it would be more accurate to say that being a member of lulzsec itself makes you suspected of being guilty. I mean they say they caught the members but that does not mean they had been tried and sentenced.

I'm no expert on law, but i think being a member of a biker gang or mafia that often commits crime CAN get you arrested as you will easily be suspected of having taken part in their actions... Being a member of such a group can easily make you an accomplice, accessory or a conspirator in the crimes committed by the other members even if you did not commit the crimes yourself. Merely having the knowledge that a crime is going to be committed can make you an accessory to the crime; or for that matter having any knowledge of the other criminals themselves can cause problems for you. Frankly, if you know the group is regularly engaged in illegal activity you really should not remain part of that group.

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Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm